


undocumented feature

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts to crash down, maybe, the day Dustin stands in front of Mark’s desk and asks, “Have you heard from Chris lately?”</p><p>Thiel doesn't make the angel investment, so Mark goes elsewhere for their funding. Four years on, he thinks he might be about to lose control of his company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	undocumented feature

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lurrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/gifts).



> AN: I read 'dark dystopian government plots' in the letter and it lodged in my brain a little. (Though this turned out a little less dark than I initially expected.)
> 
> This is based on the canon established in The Social Network film, not on any real Facebook history.

It starts to crash down, maybe, the day Dustin stands in front of Mark’s desk and asks, “Have you heard from Chris lately?” 

Or maybe it’s before that – the day Mark threw his hands up in the room full of lawyers and said, “Fine, whatever, if you think we need to give it to them.” 

It could have been months ago, when Chris called and said, “I think this law is- you guys should be paying attention to this.” 

Or it was four years ago, when Mark made a choice that wasn’t Eduardo or advertisers. 

But mostly, Dustin tugs on the cord of Mark’s headphones until he has Mark’s full attention and asks, “So have you?” 

Mark shrugs. “He calls me, usually.” 

“And has he? Recently?” 

Mark thinks back. “He didn’t call when- the downtime, he didn’t call when that happened. He usually does. So before that.” 

“Couple of weeks then,” Dustin says. 

“Yeah. Couple of weeks at least.” 

  
* * * 

_2003_

She called his name before he left the Ad Board hearing. “Mr Zuckerberg.” Everybody else filed past her, Cox shooting Mark a particularly irritated glare as he left. Mark stood by what he said: nobody should be feeling proud that it only took four hours to track down what Mark had never been hiding. 

Mark paused where he was standing, waiting her out. 

She frowned and said, “Stay here please. Some people want to speak to you.” 

Mark sat back down. He got out a legal pad and started to scrawl notes, working out how he could have balanced the server load better, if he was in charge of Harvard’s systems. 

Two people walked into the room, both wearing suits. 

“Mr Zuckerberg,” the woman said. “I’m Anita Bray, this is Agent Daniel Linton.” 

“What kind of agent?” Mark asked. 

She smiled at him. “Whenever someone, especially a college sophomore, manages the kind of thing you did, that raises certain questions. The school had a responsibility to pass those along.” 

It didn’t escape Mark’s notice that she hadn’t answered his question. 

She went on, “You’re not in trouble, Mark. At least not with us. We think you must be very talented to do what you did. And sometimes talented people need a little direction, isn’t that true? It’s difficult when you’re surrounded by people who don’t understand. We can put you in touch with some people who would, who would be able to help you realise your talents. When you’ve finished with your education, of course.” 

“I go to Harvard,” Mark said. “There are some pretty smart people right here.” 

She said, suddenly, “Your friend. Eduardo Saverin.” 

Mark blinked. “That wasn’t a question.” 

“He worked on this with you.” 

“How would you- no, I coded Facemash, Eduardo’s not a- he’s an economics major, he wouldn’t even know how to...” 

“He provided you with an algorithm.” 

Mark shrugged. “He’s not responsible for what I did with it.” 

She didn’t respond to that. “Where’s Mr Saverin from?” 

“I would think you could access that information yourself. His family lives in Miami.” 

“He wasn’t born here.” 

She didn’t phrase that like it was a question either. Mark said, “He was born in São Paulo, he’s lived here since he was in prep school.” 

She nodded, didn’t follow up on that. She took a card from her pocket and passed it to Mark across the table. “Doing this kind of thing once, that could be excused as a youthful misadventure. If it happens again,” she paused, “you might reconsider our offer of some guidance.” 

Mark thought about leaving the card on the table. The other agent hadn’t spoken the whole time they were sitting in the room. He tucked the card into his hoodie pocket, nodded at Bray, and walked out of the room and back into the quad. 

He hadn’t asked Eduardo to wait, but there he was, crouched against one of the walls. He looked up and stood before Mark had even said his name. Eduardo said, “You were in there a while.” He tapped Mark’s hip. “Probation?” 

“Six months. Also, I might have just been recruited by the FBI.” 

Eduardo covered his mouth with his hand. “Mark?” he asked, through his fingers. 

“I didn’t say yes,” Mark told him. 

Eduardo shook his head. “Tell me.” 

  
* * * 

Chris hasn’t checked in anywhere. He hasn’t sent an email or made a phone call. Mark could have done either of those things without being tracked, but Chris’s accounts are all official, all things Mark could check if he needed to. 

Chris has been working as a consultant for a group trying to help campaign organisers bring people together with causes. But when Mark calls the number he had been given for their offices, the phone rings out. The email comes back with an error message, undeliverable. 

There is a tension in the offices that even Mark notices. He’s been hearing things, the last few events he’s attended, but it had only been rumours. 

Dustin drops by his desk and says, “I was at a dinner yesterday.” 

“Okay.” 

“Maybe talk to the lawyers this week.” 

Dustin walks away and Mark is not good at speaking in code. Facebook has always been the kind of office where people say whatever’s on their mind, as it occurs to them. Sometimes, late at night with exhaustion dulling all their filters, the best ideas come that way. Dustin especially has never been known to talk around the issue. And now Dustin doesn’t trust the people in the office. Mark can’t think of another way to read his suddenly cryptic comments. 

Mark is startled by someone tapping the desk in front of him. “Mark?” 

It’s Ashleigh, who interned with Facebook that first year, and who came back to work with them full-time the summer after she finished college. There are still a lot of people here that were with Facebook from the first summer. Mark wonders if they predicted this. 

He blinks. “Yeah?” 

“Greg Adams was looking for you. He’s in their office whenever you’re free.” She tilts her head, pushing long hair out of her face. “Is everything all right?” 

“It’s fine.” 

  
* * * 

_2004_

Eduardo was dripping rainwater onto the carpet and he asked, “Why is he setting up meetings?” 

“Thiel may want to make an angel investment.” 

Mark was dragged away from Sean and into the narrow hallway where all he could see was Eduardo’s face, could hear his own stumbling words not quite managing to ask Eduardo to stay. Mark would have liked to be projecting more security than he managed, but things were moving so fast. 

The next day, Peter Thiel reluctantly told them that digital start-ups were a difficult sell right now, with all of the security concerns after what happened ten years ago. He passed them a card with a name on it and said, “He consults for the government, makes investments in technology firms. Nothing like what you have right now, but I think he would see the potential.” 

Sean looked at the card after they shook Peter’s hand and left. “I know this guy.” 

“Yeah?” 

“He helped the record companies work out what to try to arrest me for.” 

“So you’re saying no?” 

Sean rolled his neck. “I’m saying if Thiel says a guy like this would be interested, they’re thinking this thing is going to get a lot bigger.” 

“You don’t think it might- you don’t think they’ll want something for it?” 

“They’ll want something, sure. We’re smarter than they are, we know what this is. We aren’t going to give away the house.” 

Mark made the decision, because Eduardo wasn’t here. Eduardo was in New York, not understanding what Mark had been saying all along. Advertising would kill them; investment would let them grow. If Eduardo didn’t understand that, then he didn’t understand Facebook at all. “All right. Let’s talk to them.” 

  
* * * 

Greg is their current DigSec liaison. He’s not as clever as Anita had been, but he’s there all the time now. He has an _office._ Hardly any of the people Mark actually employs have their own offices – even Mark only uses his own when he needs complete silence or has to take a meeting. 

He’s taking one now with Greg, earlier than they should be meeting this week. 

Greg sets a piece of paper in front of Mark. “You have an unnamed email account.” He leaves the silence hanging in the room. 

Mark actually has several, scattered about a variety of providers. He looks down at the trace and hopes his curse doesn't show on his face. Mark has several unnamed email accounts, but none of them have prefixes which are personal. Certainly none of them start 'sharkweek14'. 

Mark keeps his gaze steady. “I need it for testing.” 

“Use of an unnamed email account for purposes of criminal activity is punishable by-” 

“I would have thought the criminal activity part was worse. And like I said, I need one for testing. I can't work around what I can't see.” 

Greg stares Mark down for a moment and then nods. He leaves, and Mark wouldn’t be able to swear that he bought that. He should bring someone else with him to these meetings. 

Mark goes back to work for three hours, until he can reasonably be seen leaving the office. He drives to a spot three miles away (distant but not suspicious if he's caught) and takes out a laptop that's not associated with any of his named accounts. 

He needs to email Chris, but for all he knows they've been monitoring the content. Whatever Chris is doing, he made a choice to route it through the Facebook servers. It must be enough on their radar that they were monitoring changes in activity. Getting the content wouldn't be easy, much harder than just grabbing the login name, but Mark can't risk it. In the end, he logs into one of his own unnamed accounts, named for something no one would see and think of him, a meteorology term he barely remembers having explained to him. He sends: _usual time and place? See you soon._ __

Chris is the only person Mark has a usual time and place with, and they almost never arrange it by email. When they're both in town, there's a diner, and a lunch-special, and if Chris meets him there it won't look suspicious unless these people already are. 

  
* 

The next morning, Mark walks up to Dustin's desk and says, casually, “Greg noticed someone using an unnamed email through Facebook servers.” 

Dustin's response is too fast. “I need it for product testing.” 

“Wasn’t yours,” Mark says. He drops the pages on Dustin’s desk. “Mine.” 

Dustin picks them up, scanning over it and nodding. “You explained that to them, yeah?” 

“Yes.” Mark pauses. “I’m grabbing lunch with Chris later, are you coming?” 

“Yeah,” Dustin says. Still too fast. 

  
* * * 

_2004_

They came at it a number of ways. It would prevent online bullying. It would mean that age limits online, laws online, could be respected. It was about identifying yourself to the internet, like a real name or a social security number. The information wasn't read backwards – no one would be able to use a person’s Facebook login to see all of the things they had done with it. 

It wasn’t saying you couldn’t _have_ an unnamed account. That would be unconstitutional. But there were certain things people did - items they bought, accounts they opened, sites they commented on – where it was reasonable to expect they did them under their own name. It would make life easier for everyone. 

Anita Bray smiled at Mark and said, “I knew we would meet again, Mr Zuckerberg.” 

“Are you going to tell me who you work for now?” Mark asked. 

“Now,” she said, “the Digital Security division.” 

“A division of what?” 

She smiled again. “I’ve been appointed as your liaison to DigSec, since we already know each other.” 

They met once, when Mark was nineteen. He didn’t know very much about her at all, though he was not convinced that went both ways. 

“Facebook already uses real names,” Mark said. “Where we act as a log-in facility on other sites, it uses the same naming convention.” 

“And that’s why we believe this works so well for both of us,” Anita says. “Facebook already provides a unique ID-” 

“That’s not necessarily true-” Mark overlaid. 

“-and the potential of a centralised database.” 

Mark looked at her. “A centralised database for what?” 

“Not actively, obviously,” she says. “But if we _encourage_ certain service providers to require a Facebook account to create accounts on their site – and it doesn’t need to be under the same name for the public-facing side of the third-party site, obviously we don’t want to infringe on user privacy needs – in the event of a legal challenge, we can tie their account to a real person.” 

“The Portland thing was ten years ago.” Everyone in the tech industries had been fighting against that case since it happened. “And they caught the guy.” 

“They would have caught him faster if they had known his name.” 

  
* * * 

Chris smiles at Mark when he walks in to the diner, but the already fixed look of it freezes when Dustin follows after him. Chris stands up. “I thought maybe we could order and then go for a walk. It’s a nice day.” 

Mark shrugs and tucks his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “All right.” 

Dustin chatters while they walk down the street, grabbing bites of his food as he remembers it. 

Mark waits. 

When they’ve been walking for fifteen minutes Chris says, “How much access do DigSec have?” 

That wasn’t what Mark was expecting him to say. “Same as they had before. Surface level searches, keyword analysis, detailed search functionality on request with cause.” Mark can recite this in his sleep. 

Chris says, “They called me in for questioning.” 

Dustin spills his drink. “What the hell?” 

Mark asks, “What were you doing?” 

“Not the point,” Dustin snaps. 

“Why did you need an unnamed email address?” Mark asks. 

  
* * * 

_2003_

Eduardo had settled down on Mark’s bed, watching something on his laptop that Mark wasn’t paying attention to. Eduardo asked, voice light and not sounding as though he expected an answer, “You ever worry about the rise of the machines?” 

Mark leaned around to look at Eduardo’s screen. “I thought you were studying.” 

“A couple of hours ago, yeah. Now I’m-” 

“Watching Terminator.” 

Eduardo smiled, unrepentant. “It’s one a.m. and I’m waiting for you to finish up. _Still_.” 

“I think that’s why we build failsafes.” 

“What?” 

Mark looked up to meet his eyes. “To prevent the rise of the machines.” 

Eduardo laughed. “Okay. You don’t worry they’ll develop their own consciousness and stop you from using it?” 

“I think we’re a little far from anything that’ll pass the Turing test just yet. And computers aren’t evil.” 

Eduardo tipped his head back to look at Mark properly. “I know that,” he said. 

“They’re not- a computer isn’t like a handgun, it’s not dangerous in itself. I trust the machines more than the people.” 

Eduardo’s mouth curled up, soft at the corner. “I know that too.” 

  
* * * 

Chris had been using an application Dustin built. It’s designed for remote workers on projects, letting them brainstorm ideas without being in the same place. Dustin had designed it for Facebook but they had made it public when Chris had left last year. He had wanted it for the group he was working with, and Mark and Dustin were happy for him to have it. It runs on Facebook servers but they had never set a hard requirement for it to use the Facebook login. 

Dustin tells him, “The data there is hidden from searches, it’s political shit, we didn’t want anything to look like we...” 

Chris says, “They called me in, it was information we shared on _your_ app, Dustin, so either you’re lying to me or someone’s lying to you.” 

“There’s no one who could be lying to me,” Dustin says, “I built it, there’s nothing hidden.” 

Mark doesn’t know. No one outside Facebook would get access, and no one running searches of public information would find anything, but the information is stored on Facebook servers. It’s encrypted, but it’s not invisible. Mark is doubting everything right now. Sean might have had a point. 

  
* 

Greg calls a board meeting. Mark doesn’t think that’s something he’s empowered to do, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped him. 

Mark sits at one end of the table and waits. 

“-and to maintain compliance with the Digital Accountability Act, DigSec will be requiring all partner organisations to provide full access to all information stored or passing through all servers. All data will remain confidential within DigSec unless information sharing is necessary with other law enforcement organisations, who-” 

Mark asks, “What if we say no?” 

Greg trails off, like a car with wheels still spinning. “I’m sorry?” 

“What are the consequences of Facebook refusing?” 

Everybody goes quiet. Greg says, “The changes have been made for the security of the general population.” 

“That’s not what he asked,” Dustin says. “We need to have our own lawyers look at this.” 

“They’re going to tell you to comply with all government requests.” 

Mark shrugs. “Probably, but we’re going to ask them anyway. We’ll talk to you again in a couple of hours.” Mark stands up, and Dustin follows him out, all the way to the office Mark uses when he needs an office. 

“Two hours?” Dustin asks. 

They don’t even get that. Mark has been sitting at the desk for ten minutes, Dustin on the couch typing, when a group of men in suits come rushing through the doors and start seizing computers. 

It’s like something out of a movie. They’re tearing cables out, bundling equipment into boxes. 

One of the programmers tries to stop them, and Mark has to shake his head and intervene. If it was only him, he would risk it. But there are a hundred other people on the ground floor, more coming down the stairs, and Mark knows it would only take one punch to start something they won’t win. 

Greg walks up to Mark, flanked by two other agents. 

Mark points out, “I hold the controlling interest in Facebook.” He always has. 

“And you’ll continue to do so. But you agreed that the US government would be able to act to protect its interests, when Insight made its first investment. For the moment, however, you’ll need to leave the offices.” 

“You’ve already taken away the computers.” 

Greg laughs. “We know you a little better than that, Mark. Now you’re going to ask everyone to leave, you and Mr Moskovitz are going to leave, and me and my agents are going to take these devices to our offices. We’re going to leave some officers here, to protect the local servers. So please don’t get any ideas.” 

“You’re going to need more than that.” Five years on, and Mark is still occasionally surprised at how little these people understand about how Facebook works. “You don’t have access.” 

“We know someone who can fix that problem. It’s time for you to leave, Mr Zuckerberg.” 

Mark hasn’t consciously thought about that day in years, but he is suddenly reminded of Eduardo’s straight back, walking away from the offices, and what it must have felt like. 

  
* * * 

_2006_

The depositions had reached the point where Sean was arrested, the end of the story so far as Eduardo was concerned. 

Sy got a call and held his hand up. “Gretchen, I think Mr Saverin is going to want to hear this one.” 

Eduardo had already stood up, and he stayed there, his hand on the back of the chair where he had been pushing it back under the table. He was all in black, and when Sy said, “That was somebody from the legal team at DigSec,” Eduardo’s eyes turned to Mark. 

Mark shrugged and waited. 

Sy said, “Facebook is a protected organisation, because of the level of government investment.” 

Eduardo said, “It isn’t government investment. Insight invested the first million.” 

“That amounts to the same thing nowadays. And it’s going to limit the potential settlement value in this case.” Sy wrote a number on a piece of paper and slid it across to Gretchen. 

She frowned, and showed it to Eduardo. 

Eduardo was staring at Mark again. “Did you know this was going to happen?” 

“I didn’t know I was apparently planning on settling.” 

“Mark. Did you know this was going to- why would you make me come out here and go through all of this again when you knew...?” 

Sy interrupted, “That wasn’t theatre, Mr Saverin. We only received that confirmation from DigSec when I took the call.” 

“But you knew it might happen.” 

Mark shrugged because he hadn’t known, but Eduardo turned his back and took a long breath. 

Eduardo looked at him again. “I don’t care. I don’t care if your friends in the government are saying this is theirs now. I was there when you built it, I’m a co-founder of Facebook and you’re going to say that even if you don’t pay me a cent-” 

Gretchen grabbed Eduardo’s arm before he could say any more. She glared at Sy. “You shouldn’t have sprung this on us at the last minute. Give me some time to look through their claim, and we can meet again in the morning.” 

  
* * * 

They’ve taken up residence in a basement apartment an hour away from the offices. Mark has moved some money around, so they could be somewhere nicer, but right now it’s more important that they be low profile. Initially that was because Chris was here, and they’re apparently interested in what he’s doing. Now, Mark and Dustin are probably being watched just as thoroughly. 

“You have a plan, right?” Dustin asks. 

Mark is connecting back to the Facebook servers, taking longer while he masks his tracks. Greg wasn’t lying. Someone has given them deeper access than they should. They’re running specific searches, going through a volume of data they shouldn’t have any need to see. Mark could stop them, probably, but not without letting them know he’s here. 

More worryingly, they’re trying to go beyond that. They’re trying to change site-wide settings without making that clear to the userbase. They’re trying to install active search criteria, divert flow of information, intervene in the flow of information when the whole _point_ is that the users control the data. The users provide the data, and all Facebook does is ask the right questions, connect people with their friends and their interests and this isn’t... 

Chris is talking. “Even if you can’t- they’re taking this from you, taking Facebook, they could do whatever they like and you can’t-” 

“I built a failsafe,” Mark says on top of Chris continuing to speak. 

“-stop that from happening, and I don’t know why you don’t- what did you say?” 

“And what do you mean I don’t care?” Mark asks. 

“What did you say, Mark?” 

“What do you mean I don’t care?” 

“No, before that, you built what?” Chris looks at him like he’s waiting for more than just an answer to the question. 

Mark stares at him. “I built a failsafe.” 

“For Facebook.” 

“I built a lot of failsafes, actually, but they’ve got through a few of them, they must have had help. I can think of one that would stop it.” 

“Stop what?” 

“Stop Facebook. Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

Chris pulls his knees to his chest. “You think you can just turn it off? And you would do that?” 

“Like you said. It’s not mine any more. But I’d need to get inside.” 

“Inside the offices?” 

“I need a direct connection to the servers, it would take too long from the outside, they’d catch us.” 

Dustin laughs, a little hysterical. It’s the first time he’s spoken since he asked about a plan. “They’d _definitely_ catch you if you tried to get inside. They’re looking for you.” 

“Yes,” Mark agrees. 

“They’ll be looking for me too.” 

Chris hums. “What was it they wanted you to do? Before you left?” 

“They can only read the data,” Mark tells him. “Run searches that already exist, just on more information than they should have access to. They can make basic changes but not the ones they want. They don’t have full access, even with whoever helped them get into the back-end data storage.” 

“What would they need?” Chris asks. 

“Me or Dustin. Sean. One of the lead programmers who was there at the beginning. You could do it, probably, if I talked you through it.” 

“I have an idea.” 

  
* 

Chris has been making calls for two or three days. Mark has been wired-in and not tracking the passage of time. Mark’s own phone has been disconnected – it’s real-name associated, and he doesn’t have another. Chris, for all that he went about getting his unnamed emails the wrong way, has been more prepared for this to happen. 

Something pulls Mark from the coding. He takes his headphones off and spins around in his chair. “No.” 

Eduardo asks him, “Explain to me how this is better than ads.” 

Mark turns to Chris. “No.” 

“I told you I had an idea.” 

“ _No.”_

Dustin ignores both of them. “Wardo!” He crosses the small room quickly, wrapping his arms around Eduardo. 

Eduardo drops his case. “Hey, Dustin.” 

“We’re fugitives now,” Dustin tells him. 

“We’re not-” Chris rolls his eyes, “-not _fugitives,_ Dustin.” 

“We’re a little bit fugitives,” he insists. 

Chris sighs and slumps on the couch. 

Dustin frowns. “Hey.” He goes to the couch, dragging Eduardo with him, and settles down beside Chris. Dustin stretches his arm along the back and Chris slides in beside him. Chris – now Mark looks at him properly – has dark circles under his eyes. 

Mark turns. Eduardo looks just like he did during the depositions: slicked back hair, dark suit, and eyes that slide away from Mark’s. 

Chris says, “They don’t know Eduardo’s here. I used a phone I didn’t buy, I didn’t use any of the emails you warned me about.” 

“That’s not the point.” 

“He can get into the offices.” 

“How?” 

Eduardo says, “They need more access than they have.” 

“Yes.” 

“I’m going to tell them I can give it to them.” 

“Why would they buy that?” Mark nods towards Chris. “Eduardo’s a terrible liar.” 

“I’ve got a little better in the last four years,” Eduardo says. “And I don’t think anyone’s going to have difficulty believing that I might want to screw you over.” 

  
* 

It’s dark in the lounge. Mark sits on the floor, setting up a new line of proxies to check in to Facebook. 

When he looks up, minutes or hours later, Eduardo is sitting on the couch, staring into space. 

Mark asks, “You need me?” 

Eduardo snorts, for reasons Mark can’t immediately establish. “I’m okay. Just jetlagged.” 

Mark nods, and puts his hands back to the keyboard. He can’t drop back into it; he’s aware of Eduardo sitting awake across the room. 

Eventually, Eduardo crosses the floor and sits down to look over Mark’s shoulder. “What is it?” 

“I can’t work out what they’re doing,” Mark admits. 

“What do you mean?” 

Mark points at the screen. “They want to be able to see everything, all the time. I don’t know what they want that they couldn’t get from the passive scan and requests.” 

“But you're not-” Eduardo says. “It's not about one person, most of the time one person doesn’t matter, unless they're really- they’re not _looking_ for the one person, is what I mean. If they were, it wouldn't be so - they’re looking for patterns. Storm fronts. It’s not the one person who posts something about capitalism, it’s the five hundred who share it, and the ten who organise a rally, and then another hundred who check-in to the same place. It’s all the ways the pressure changes before the first bolt of lightning.” 

Mark has - deliberately - forgotten over the years that Eduardo is as smart as him in different ways. “Algorithms,” he says, “not codewords. They don’t care about terrorists, they’re looking for the places where dissent starts up.” 

Eduardo shrugs. “I don't know what else they’d need this level of access for.” 

  
* * * 

_2003_

Mark hadn’t been expecting to wake up with Eduardo beside him in the bed. He probably shouldn't have been surprised. Eduardo, so far as Mark could tell, had not had a relationship for the whole time Mark had known him. But he did have sex. More than Mark or Dustin managed at any rate. And he never seemed to end up with girls crying over him not calling, or guys yelling at him in the quad. Mark guessed he was usually a very considerate one-night stand. 

Mark wasn’t actually sure if he felt this to be considerate or not. He stared at the ceiling. Eduardo stirred, turning over to smile at Mark. “Do you want to get breakfast? My treat.” 

“I should really get back to work.” 

“Mark?” 

“I need to figure out the privacy controls, there’s something I haven’t got right yet, and after Facemash I need to be able to say that I'm prioritising user choice.” 

“Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can’t eat.” 

“It’s okay if you go. If you’re hungry.” 

Eduardo rolled up onto his elbow, blanket falling down his bare chest. “Mark?” he asked again. He shook his head without saying anything else. “Okay. I can go.” 

  
* * * 

“It doesn’t _matter,”_ Dustin says. 

“Someone got them in.” It matters to Mark. “The way they got in, that’s a backdoor that has to have been there from nearly the beginning. Sean was there.” 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this.” Eduardo runs his hands through his hair. “But I don’t think Sean would do that.” 

Dustin looks as though he can’t believe it either, and Mark sympathises with the sentiment. “He had the access,” Mark says. “And he knew how everything worked. The people who knew best how to do it are me, Dustin, and Sean. And we’re both here.” 

Eduardo says, “And I’ll take your word on the technical side, okay? But Sean was – _is_ , I imagine – paranoid. He thought he was being followed, thought his phone was being tapped, years before everything... and didn’t he get in trouble with the FBI over someone he hacked when he was a teenager?” 

Mark nods, unsurprised by how much background information on Sean that Eduardo has retained. 

“I can see him doing all kinds of things, but I’m not sure he’d trust anyone there long enough to spy on you for them.” 

Mark doesn’t know. Sean got _scared_ of cops, unnerved by every meeting Mark had to take with the DigSec committees. Maybe he thought it was a way of keeping himself safe. 

  
* * * 

_2004_

“-the world is a hostile place,” Sean was saying. “The mainstream, middle-class, corporateworld, they _use_ the internet but they don’t inhabit it. They’re afraid of it. The government are afraid of it. Because they don’t know what to do with it. The laws don’t apply there.” 

“Actually,” Eduardo said. “I think the same laws apply there as they do anywhere else?” 

Sean blinked at him and kept talking. “They’re barely able to move fast enough to keep up. I’ve heard they’re actually having to set up a whole new division within the FBI to even try and get a handle on it, but here’s the kicker- they don’t know what they’re looking for.” 

“Also I’m not sure how this is relevant to Facebook.” Eduardo leant back in the chair, pushing his plate away. 

Mark did though. “Facebook is about the people who inhabit the internet, people like us.” 

“Exactly,” Sean said. “People who don’t care if you break a few rules right now, because we’re still making the rules up as we go.” 

“Exactly,” Mark echoed. 

“It’s going to spread beyond that,” Sean said, “but the users you have already, the college kids who have no problem – who are _happy –_ telling you what they’re doing, what they want, these are the guys you want first. These are the people who don’t care what the government is complaining about, or the reasons the big corporations are holding back. These people just want shit to _work,_ they want the same things online as they do off it, and you’re giving them that. By the time the suits realise it, you’re going to be so far ahead of the game there won’t be anything they can do to put Pandora back in the box.” 

Eduardo was shaking his head in disbelief but Mark knew already that Sean was right. They needed to keep moving, changing, as fast as they could because the minute they stood still was the minute someone put a name to this and stopped them. 

  
* * * 

Mark gets a ping on one of his older unnamed emails: _Wasn’t me. Meet me at Victoria’s Secret and I’ll explain._

Mark looks at the email. “If you were Sean-” he begins, and Eduardo swallows. 

“What?” 

“He wants to meet. I’m just not sure where.” 

Dustin gets up to look at the email. He raises one eyebrow. “Victoria’s Secret. Even for Sean...?” 

“There’s a- he likes this story about the guy who founded Victoria’s Secret and then jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.” 

The other three stare. 

Mark coughs. “So, yes, he could be at Victoria’s Secret, but I think it’s more likely the bridge, or the club we were in when he told me.” 

“Do you trust him?” Chris asks. “Three days ago you were convinced he was your leak.” 

“Our leak. I don’t know. But we need to meet him anyway.” 

Eduardo is the one to shake his head. “Fine. Chris, do you want to drive with me to the club? Dustin and Mark can try the Golden Gate.” 

Mark tilts his head to question that but changes his mind. “Okay.” 

Eduardo stares at him. 

Mark does ask the question then. “What?” 

  
* 

They wait around near the bridge, looking like tourists who stayed out too late. Dustin looks at his watch. “How late is he usually?” 

“He didn’t actually give a time,” Mark says, feeling like he’s stuck defending Sean again. 

Dustin makes a face before his phone rings. “Chris?” He smiles. “We’ll be back soon.” He looks at Mark and rolls his eyes a little. “They found him, but he’s drunk.” 

“Okay.” That part, at least, Mark can handle. 

  
* * * 

_2004_

Mark always resented being asked to do something that he had been planning to do anyway. 

Anita said, “Sean Parker is a liability.” 

“I’m dealing with it. How does this even relate to you?” 

“You have an investment-” 

“From Insight, yeah, not from the US government.” 

She smiled. “I’m only trying to help, Mark. Sean compromises security just by being around. He’s a risk.” 

“Risk isn’t a bad thing.” 

“Even when you risk the company?” 

Facebook needed to be protected. When Mark called Sean, he got a ten minute diatribe on investors trying to steal the company, another ten on the undeclared corporate interests of the US government, and a final five on how drugs had been planted at the party. Mark left him his interest but removed the salary. Sean couldn’t be trusted to act in the best interest of Facebook, and that was what mattered. 

  
* * * 

Sean’s hands twitch in his lap. His eyes are red-rimmed and Mark doesn’t know what from. Eduardo is sitting opposite him; Chris had opened the door and ushered Mark and Dustin inside. Chris then turns and leans his back against the door. There are now five of them in a one-bed apartment. 

Sean looks up and meets Mark’s eyes. “So I’m pretty sure it was Ashleigh.” 

Mark presses his thumbs to his temples. “Ashleigh wasn’t even an employee when that backdoor was written. She was an intern.” 

“There were fewer than fifty people working that fall. She was _arrested._ And she came back to you the next year, didn’t she?” 

Mark shrugs. “A lot of people came back after they finished school.” He can see Eduardo move out of the corner of his eye. 

Sean leans forward. “They _got to her_.” 

“What?” 

“Your government drones. They recruited her out of college, just like they tried to do with you. She was the cuckoo in the goddamn nest.” 

Mark interrupts him before Sean can jump into a mixed metaphor. “You can prove it?” 

A pause. “Yeah. Get me a laptop.” 

  
* 

Dustin has never really managed to get wired-in the way Mark does, or the other coders. He was always too aware of everything that was happening in the periphery, lifting his head to react to whatever Mark or Chris were saying. It helps him out in other ways, Mark thinks, though he’s never told Dustin that. 

Dustin is typing at the code to create the exploit they’re going to need, while Mark tries to figure out a way to make this work without sending Eduardo there in person. Mark has known since he was eighteen that Dustin is always listening, but is still surprised when Dustin’s head goes up. “What?” 

Chris nods. “Exactly.” 

Sean is saying, “Look, Eduardo and I have agreed on precisely zero things in the whole time we’ve known each other-” 

“I agreed with you about the ‘the’,” Eduardo interjects. 

“-but we’re in agreement on this one, okay? He needs to go in. Because they will absolutely believe that he knows how to get them the access they want, since their bosses have no idea what that would mean. And they believe that he wants to screw Mark over, which is – helpfully – maybe not untrue.” 

Mark wants to protest that, but he doesn’t. 

The corner of Eduardo’s mouth pulls up in that smile that doesn’t quite mean he found something funny. Mark saw it a lot across the deposition room table. Eduardo says, “You’re saying that they’re not smart enough to know I’m not smart enough to do this.” 

“You’re smart,” Mark says. “You’re not a programmer.” 

Eduardo blinks at him. “Anyway. Yes, I agree. I can do this, and I don’t know who else we could ask.” 

There were lots of other people they could have asked, people who had been in the Facebook offices when the raid happened, who would know better how to do what they need. Eduardo doesn’t like Mark, doesn’t like Facebook, and maybe he is just here so he can destroy it, but Mark can’t have him hurt because of it. 

“We can't send him in on his own,” Mark says. “We won't know what's going on.” 

“Well we can't put a bug on him,” Sean points out. “They can track those.” 

Eduardo snorts. “Your paranoia was really just ahead of its time.” 

“They did bug me,” Sean insists. “Phone, apartment, girlfriend, the works.” 

“Girlfriend,” Mark says. 

“What?” 

“We can't bug Eduardo. We just need to bug someone else who'll be in the room.” 

“Ashleigh.” 

Sean grins. “She have a real-name phone?” 

“Yeah.” 

Sean cracks his knuckles. “Then let’s get to work.” 

  
* 

It's a little like the first Palo Alto house, Mark thinks, too many of them sharing rooms, eating and sleeping at strange hours, crammed together. 

“The Palo Alto house had a pool,” Dustin points out. “This place doesn't have sunlight.” 

“There's sunlight between 7.39 and 8.42,” Eduardo says, pointing to the narrow slit of window just below the ceiling. “It comes between the buildings.” 

Mark knows this, because Mark has caught Eduardo lying on the couch where the line of light crosses it. This morning, every time Mark looked up, Eduardo had moved a little further down the cushions, to the corner where he’s lying now, though the light has gone away. 

“Whatever, weirdos,” Dustin says. “Chris, I need natural light before my skin goes from ‘doesn’t tan’ to ‘luminescent’. Put on a hat and come for a walk.” 

Chris stretches from his position on the couch. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with some of my groups, warning them about using the site to share information.” 

Mark says, “It’ll raise flags if-” 

“I know,” Chris says, “I’m telling them to keep confidential information off anything that uses a Facebook login, but not to go completely quiet.” 

“Good.” It reassures Mark that they’re thinking of some of the same things. Hopefully between the five of them, they’ve got all of it. 

Chris shoots him a quick smile. “We’ll be back soon.” He and Dustin head up the stairs and then it’s just Eduardo still in the room. 

Mark asks, “You see Sean?” 

Eduardo nods towards the bedroom. “He’s either asleep or he passed out.” 

Mark is starting to see spots at the edge of his vision, so he understands the impulse. He’s not done yet. 

Eduardo waits for a moment and then asks, “Are you really going to be able to do this?” 

“Do what?” 

“What you’re planning. It’s basically going to just- it’ll destroy Facebook.” 

“Yes.” 

“Historically, Facebook has been the thing you cared about most. And I get that you don’t want them to have it, so maybe that’s enough, but I _know you,_ Mark. Even after everything that happened.” 

“I need you to trust me.” 

Eduardo laughs, short. “I got better at not doing that as well.” 

“The day we launched,” Mark says. “Before you gave me the emails, I showed you the site when I finished it. You were the first person to see it finished, after me.” 

“I know. That doesn’t mean-” 

Mark interrupts, “You said – do you remember? – you said, you have no idea what that’s going to mean to my father.” 

“I remember.” 

“But I did. They didn’t know, the Phoenix, and the Harvard Investors Association, your _father_ , even. I was the one who knew you. I knew you better than they did. It wasn’t just you.” 

“Yeah? And look what you did with that knowledge.” 

“Because that was the thing I got wrong, I didn’t know- I didn’t realise there was anything I didn’t know about you, and I knew you didn’t care about what Facebook could be, or the site itself, so when it happened I didn’t- I didn't know that it mattered to you.” 

Eduardo sighs. “Just because it didn't mean the same thing to me as it does to you doesn't mean it didn't matter. It mattered _because_ it mattered to you.” 

“I didn't get that either. How much I- it mattered to you that we were friends.” 

The look in Eduardo's eyes is awful. “What else could I possibly have done?” 

“Wardo-” 

“I gave you the start-up capital, I spent weeks in New York trying to get advertisers you wouldn't hate, so you didn't need to climb in with Insight, with the same people who came to threaten you into coming on board with them when you were _nineteen_ and stupid and drunk-blogging. We slept together, Mark, for fuck's sake, what else did you want me to-?” 

“You slept with lots of people.” 

Eduardo freezes. 

“I don't mean that like- I'm not trying to be cruel, I just mean- you slept with lots of people at Harvard so I don't get how I was supposed to know that it was different when we-” 

“You didn't,” Eduardo says. 

“What?” 

“ _You_ didn't sleep with lots of people. And I was never entirely sure if that was by accident or design but you kissed me first, Mark, and I thought- I don't know what I thought. That it mattered, maybe.” 

“Of course it mattered.” 

“Okay, well now it’s... that was a long time ago, Mark.” 

“I know. I just wanted you to know. And I can do what needs to be done.” 

Facebook matters too much for Mark to let them turn it into something else. He has wondered before if he would change anything, knowing how it ended. If they had told him at the start, those months in Kirkland, that he was going to be driven out of offices he hadn’t imagined yet, destroy a site whose reach he hadn’t guessed... Mark still doesn’t know what he would have done. He suspects he would still have built the site. He would have protected it better, figured out a way to keep them out, but he would still have built it. Mark isn’t sure what that says about him. 

  
* 

When they’re ready, everything happens too quickly. Mark should be used to that, but it’s three in the afternoon and Eduardo is heading to a meeting that Chris set up through one of his contacts, and Mark can’t remember the last thing they said to each other. It shouldn’t matter. 

They have no way of communicating with Eduardo now. Mark and Dustin had quizzed him on what he needed to do, how he needs to get the flash drive connected without anyone spotting it, what he can say to make it seem like he knows what he’s talking about. But right now, all they can do is listen. 

“-thank you for your cooperation,” Greg is saying. 

Eduardo replies, “I’m happy to help. I don’t understand why Mark wouldn’t.” 

“So you volunteered.” That’s Ashleigh. She was around for the parts of this with Eduardo smashing laptops in the office. 

Eduardo knows this. He says, “I think you can imagine why I might be keen to distance myself from Mark’s activities.” 

“You’re not a programmer,” she says. 

“No,” he admits easily. “But I knew a few of them. And Mark forgot that I wasn’t one. He had a tendency to explain things in greater detail than anyone would need.” 

In the apartment, Chris covers a smile with his hand. 

Ashleigh asks, “And he told you how to do this?” 

Even from the audio, Mark can tell that Eduardo smiles and shrugs. “At the time there were only four of us. I think it was just a redundancy, to make sure I could do it if I needed to. If anything happened to him, or he needed help.” Something happens that Mark can’t read just from the audio, because Eduardo says, “I was always going to be there to help him.” 

Ashleigh says, “And now you’re here. So you can show us what you have.” 

Sean shouts, “It’s running, three minutes.” 

Mark should put his headphones on. He doesn’t. Chris is monitoring Eduardo, and Dustin will be listening, but Sean won’t. Mark keeps a portion of his attention – not a lot, but more than the minimum amount – on listening to Eduardo try to talk his way through this. The rest of it is occupied with preparing to take his own site to pieces so thoroughly that no one will be able to put it back together. 

Eduardo is telling them, “You’re in now,” and there’s a moment, just one, where Mark wonders. 

Dustin asks, “Mark?” and this is their window, already closing fast. 

Mark tells Chris, “Get him out safe,” and gets to work. 

  
* 

One of Mark’s emails sends an alert, an unnamed one he hasn’t used since this started. It says: _We know this was you. We’ll find you._

Mark packs up his laptop. “We need to move.” 

“Eduardo’s still not-” Chris protests. 

“ _Pack,”_ Mark repeats. 

Dustin says, “We’re not leaving until he’s back.” 

Mark stops immediately where he’s standing. “No, we’re not. But we need to be ready to go.” He turns his head. “Did Sean leave?” 

They don’t have time. Sean will find them later if he wants to, one way or the other. There’s only a few bags here, plus the equipment. 

Chris has his phone to his ear. “Word’s getting around. A few reports that confidentiality’s been breached, that DigSec have been doing something with the site.” 

“Enough to make a start,” Mark says. 

Eduardo hurtles down the stairs. “Mark?” His cheeks are flushed and there’s a moment, just one, where he’s surprised to see them there. 

Mark grabs his arm. “I’ve packed your stuff, we need to go.” 

Eduardo takes the bag from Mark’s other hand, but doesn’t pull away. He uses their joined hands to pull Mark back up the stairs. The four of them squeeze into the car Chris thinks is least likely to be tracked, and Dustin drives. Mark sits in the back seat beside Eduardo and listens to his breathing slowly come back to normal. 

  
* 

The new apartment is at the top of a building with no elevator. Mark heads upstairs, half-tripping as he runs. Eduardo looks at him when he walks through the door. “If we’re in hiding, maybe change up the flip-flops.” 

“We’re not in hiding,” Mark says. “They can’t prove that we did anything.” 

“I was there when it started; I think they can prove _something_.” 

“It looks like a failsafe I built,” Mark says. “It’s designed to look as though any attempt to circumvent security triggered a cascading collapse.” 

“You know I don’t understand any of how you did that?” Eduardo asked, smiling at him. It’s the first time Mark has seen that particular version of the expression since the day Eduardo signed the papers. 

“I know,” Mark says. He asks, “When I called you back to San Francisco after the investment-” 

“I told you I wasn’t sure about Insight, but it was the investment we needed. And you said ‘I need my CFO’, so I came.” 

“Sorry.” 

Eduardo lets out a short bark of laughter. “The first time you say that, and I’m pretty sure it’s not about anything you did to me, or even about the part where we’re probably fugitives now.” 

“We’re not fugitives,” Mark says again. “They can’t prove we’ve done anything illegal.” 

“They’re going to _make_ something we did illegal.” They sit in silence for a moment. Then Eduardo says, idly, “Anyway, I never minded that part.” 

“Which part?” 

“Where you said my CFO, instead of my name.” 

Mark processes that. “You liked that I said ‘my’.” 

Eduardo flushes a little, shrugs one shoulder. “I said I didn’t mind.” 

Eduardo had seemed so calm to most people. Steady. And he was, ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent, it was like a switch flipped: he ran his hands violently through his hair, yelled, threw things. Ten percent of the time, Mark would like to know what he could do better. 

Everything he has worked on for the past five years has been torn to pieces, data disassociated from its connecting parts. There’s nothing to rebuild, because every user now knows what DigSec tried to use it for. The users provide the data, Eduardo had said that right from the start. And now they don’t want to. Mark doesn’t know what to do next. 

Eduardo is still looking at him. This is what Mark has left: Chris and Dustin who will be back in an hour; Sean who might be back if he ever trusts that the four of them got clear; and Eduardo who still, somehow, manages to look at Mark like that. 

Mark tugs at his arm. “Come with me.” 

Eduardo follows him into the bedroom, one of two in the new apartment. He drops back onto the bed, fast enough that Mark goes after him, knees braced either side of Eduardo’s thighs. 

He leans just enough of his weight on Eduardo’s wrists that he will feel it, will be able to tell that Mark is serious. “You can trust me.” Mark puts everything he can into that. He knows what he’s asking, what he has asked already. He needs to burn out the share dilution, and Sean, and every time he missed what Eduardo was trying to offer him. It has been a long time, and just about everything else between them is destroyed now, but they are still here. “You can trust me.” 

Eduardo’s eyes drop closed, and he shifts on the mattress. He turns his head, lets his cheek fall against the pillow. 

Mark leans down and bites his throat. 

Eduardo doesn't tense, just rolls up towards Mark, some low sound he doesn't try to catch. 

“I’m here,” Mark says. “You can trust me.” 

  
* 

There is more sunlight here, despite the lack of elevator, and the tiny kitchen they’re still not making any use of. Mark sits on the couch with a legal pad instead of his laptop, pen pressed to the page with nothing to write. 

Eduardo is patient, though Mark thought he had long exhausted the supplies of that particular reserve. “What did you want to do, at the beginning? Why did you make it?” 

“I wanted to build something- the school wouldn't do it, and I knew I could. I knew people wanted to.” Mark shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know, maybe just because I could.” 

“It was more than that,” Eduardo says. He’s so sure. 

“I thought it could make things better. I realise how that sounds in retrospect but I really did believe that. People are complicated, and Facebook was supposed to cut through that. Let people express what was important about them, what mattered to them, in a way that would allow other people to see it. It was supposed to make things better.” 

“Okay.” Eduardo exhales. “So start with that. People to people.” 

“And do what?” 

“Build something new.” 

“You’re staying.” 

“Well I’m a felon now, so I think you’re obliged to keep me around.” He settles down on the couch, stretching out so his feet are pressed against Mark’s leg. 

Dustin comes in, popcorn balanced on top of his laptop. Chris is saying, “I could have carried that.” 

“I’m not letting you steal it all, I made it.” Off Chris’s look he apparently relents. “Fine.” 

Chris reaches over as they walk, grabbing a handful. Then he looks at Mark. “I have people who want to talk to you.” 

Dustin laughs. “That sounded vaguely threatening, just so you know.” 

Chris shakes his head and elbows Dustin. “About whether or not you want to help them do something. DigSec are trying to rebuild the login process, calling it U-ID or something. I presume we want to stop them.” 

“Eduardo says I made him a felon.” 

“Technically,” Dustin says, “you made us all felons. Or Facebook did, anyway.” 

“Computers aren’t evil,” Eduardo says, tipping his head to one side and smiling right at Mark. “People should get to see that part too.” 

Mark slides the pen across the page, looks up at the three of them. “Okay. Keep talking.” 


End file.
